gogtrial34987: Oh, bother. >.< Yes, I play on Linux exclusively.
How much play time in the game before you hit that point?
All I know is what it says on those threads, I've just been waiting for 2.0 ever since I got it otherwise. Lin545 was saying 19 hours there, but from what I gather from tknp's post it's the end of act 1, and How Long to Beat lists 19h as the average time for the whole game (from very little data though). There is this bit though, "If you want to get by this section yourself you can load the save game in windows or have a friend do it, then go through to act 2 and transfer the save back to linux. The save files seem to be compatible between the platforms.", if you have a Win install (or VM?) you can use.
Speaking of 2.0, according to the changelog posted on Steam, sure looks like difficulty will get quite a spike, especially with blocking no longer healing except on easy, plus all those enemy HP hikes and better enforced skill caps and training limits.